The cheapest ticket for the Mets’ midday home game against the Nationals on Thursday is going for $4 with fees included on VividSeats as the team is “struggling,” according to ESPN.com. The low price “isn’t entirely egregious” in the context of a Thursday day game — the cheapest tickets for matinee Astros-Orioles and D-backs-Brewers are in the single digits. But if the Mets cannot turn things around on the field, it is “hard to see the cost of entrance to Citi Field bouncing back soon.” The cheapest ticket for the game Tuesday night against the Nationals was at $11 (ESPN.com, 4/28).
FAILING TO ACT: THE ATHLETIC’s Ian O’Connor wrote since Steve Cohen bought the club from Fred Wilpon for $2.4B in 2020, there are “no champions built and no trophies displayed.” Cohen’s heart and wallet “have been in the right place” and he “does care about winning first and foremost.” The Mets set a Citi Field attendance record last year for a reason. But just like in the world of finance, a healthy investment in sports does “not guarantee a healthy return.” Cohen has “failed to establish the consistent culture required for the sustained winning he all but guaranteed on arrival.” However, he “hasn’t shown the shrewd eye that turned him into a $21 billion juggernaut.” Cohen has been “all over the place” in his six seasons in Queens. Even his “most stunning victory” — signing RF Juan Soto in free agency for an “ungodly sum of money — is hard to celebrate given the record with Soto in his employ.” The Mets have been “completely unwatchable.” Cohen “pledged something much better than this” (THE AHTLETIC, 4/28). In N.Y., Peter Sblendorio wrote fans are “reeling from the team’s nightmarish 9-19 start” and can “take at least some solace in this simple truism: This is all part of the experience.” Many “expected those fortunes to change” when Cohen bought the team “with an appetite to turn it into a winner.” The future “appeared even brighter” when President/Baseball Operations David Stearns became Cohen’s “handpicked leader of the front office” in 2023 (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 4/27).